Bal Sagoth
Atlantis Ascendant
From the journal of Professor Caleb
Blackthorne III, discovered May 1899,
near the great Temple at Tiahuanaco,
Peru:
23 September: 1893
Upon extensive examination of the nefarious
arcane codex known as The Epsilon
Exordium, I believe my search may at last
be drawing to a close. Indeed, I feel that
perhaps the great discovery which has
eluded me for so long may finally be within
my grasp. And yet I must be cautious, for
twice more have I seen the figures in the
night, watching me in silence from the
confines of the darkness. I cannot discern
their features, only that they are vaguely
human in shape, save for their arms which
seem abnormally long and oddly jointed. My
native guides are becoming increasingly
agitated and skittish, babbling incoherently
about the guardians of the tombs... citing
legends from their ancestral past which
speak of mysterious travellers who reputedly
came down from the stars in great silvern
chariots drawn by steeds of flame.
At any rate, I have my trusted Martini-Henry
.45 calibre breech-loader should these silent
stalkers prove malign and ever deign to lay
hold of me in the night.
I have at last translated the carvings on the
stone fragment I unearthed amidst the ruins
of Angkor Wat. To my astonishment, I found
that it predated the construction of the
temple itself by countless thousands of
years, and that it spoke of the same subject
as did the hieroglyphs I beheld on the wall of
the concealed chamber which I and Lord
Blakiston discovered within the Great
Pyramid in Egypt. Successive examinations
of the edifices at Giza and Karnak revealed
further parallels too precise to be mere
coincidence. The pieces of this great
cosmic puzzle are finally beginning to fall
into place...
2 October: 1893
Yes, it is as I suspected. I have long felt that
the Sumerians of Mesapotamia were
among the first peoples to attain elucidation
concerning the dread matter I pursue. My
excavations at Lagash, Eridu, and most
notably the ziggurats at Ur, have revealed
truths which subsequent finds at Angkor,
Egypt and Sacsahuaman only serve to
consolidate. I now know that the Olmechs,
the Aztecs and the Mayans were also
undeniably key tendrils of this grand global
web, and the unnerving truth I hitherto felt
compelled to deny now seems inexorably to
point to some grand and terrifying universal
axiom.
It seems however, that the closer I come to
enlightenment, the greater the danger
becomes. Last night, one of our expedition's
chief guides disappeared without trace. His
native compatriots could find no tracks, nor
offer any evidence of his departure to
suggest that his superstitions had finally
compelled him to abandon the party... the
man seems simply to have vanished
inexplicably into the oppressive, sweltering
dark. In light of the disappearance, I opted
not to inform the group that during the
darkling hours before sunrise last night I had
peered from my tent to behold what I
perceived to be three of the shadowy figures
I have previously described moving furtively
in the gloom, keeping ever just out of the
illuminatory radias of our campfire.
By the time I had brought my rifle to bear,
they had melted away into the fathomless
shadows of the benighted jungle...
10 October: 1893
The inscriptions on the tablet I discovered
seem to be a fragmentary piece of some
mysterious, perhaps apocryphal, larger
work; evidently a lexicon of some
description, undoubtedly of antediluvian
origin. The first section, as far as I can
discern, tells of an era thousands of years
past when countless great and advanced
civilisations, apparently with the legendary
Atlantis foremost amongst them, spanned
the circumference of the globe. The initial
passage, seemingly a celebration of
Atlantis Ascendant carved by a renowned
chronicler of the day, speaks thusly:
The Chronicler of Antediluvia: Long ago,
before the Third Great Cataclysm reshaped
the face of creation, one nation rose above
all others in the antediluvian world... Atlantis.
The Atlantean Quorum: Hear the call
Atlanteans, proud we stand forever,
Mightiest of warriors, we sail across the
sea.
Conquering the ancient world, a legacy
eternal,
Raise the arcane sigil high, steel and
sorcery!
Blessed with immortality, dreaming spires of
majesty, glory crowns our destiny!
The Host of Z'xulth: Your realm is lost... it
shall be devoured by the sea!
The Chronicler of Antediluvia: And so it
was written in the stars, astride the world
would stand the children of Atlantis! And yet
disturbingly, another voice, a wholly darker
and more malevolent presence, can be
perceived lurking within the ancient body of
the inscriptions, an ominous tone which
prophesizes doom and ruination for the
Atlantean realm, speaking of a disastrous
cataclysm foretold in the stars when the sun
would burn black and the agents of some
unfathomable evil would besiege Atlantis,
ultimately compelling the seas to rise and
devour the continent, leaving no trace of the
glory which once was. These passages
seem to have been deliberately obscured,
and this fact combined with the passage of
countless aeons and the embrace of the
eternally shifting sands lamentably prevents
me from translating the inscriptions on the
fragment any further.
12 October: 1893
I must commit this to the pages of my
journal, while it is still vivid in my
recollection... not that such a macabre vision
could possibly soon be blissfully forgotten.
Just before dawn, I awoke from a fantastic
and somewhat horrifying dream in which I
traversed a great black cyclopean
cityscape, its towering stygian walls
inscribed with some form of outlandish
glyphs which seemed to writhe squamously
and alter their shape even as I gazed at
them. A sibilant whispering which seemed
at once familiar and yet intrusively alien
compelled me to walk to the edge of a
particularly sinister looking edifice and peer
out over its precipitous perimeter. When I
did so, I beheld this world of ours,
recognizing vaguely the apparent shapes of
the five continents, yet the entire vista
seemed so distant that the whole appeared
in its entirety no larger than a sphere which I
could fit snugly into the palm of my hand.
When I turned again to behold the looming
obelisks, I found I could then easily read the
previously untranslatable ciphers in the
black stone. They were the words of a great
thaumaturgist who had seemingly
discovered a repository of aeons-old lore
detailing the sidereal web of the cosmos,
with arcane diagrams pinpointing certain
astral portals and places of empyreal
potency, a sort of pangalactic ley-line chart,
if you will. Indeed, these Star-Maps Of The
Ancient Cosmographers seemed to take
a not insignificant toll on the author's sanity,
as evidenced by the tone of his inscriptions,
which seem to suggest that in discovering
this Pandora's Box of dark elucidation, his
fate was to be inexorably dogged by some
nameless and implacable gloom;
The Thaumaturgist: The Great Eye of the
Universe opens! Through this astral art the
secrets of the cosmos are mine to know...
for the stars are my dominion!
Empowered at the periphery, ascending to
the Id's eyrie,
The cosmos feathers her nest with fire.
Ephemeral, the nexus calls, besieging
cyclopean walls,
Branded deviant and pariah.
Betwixt the hammer and the anvil are forged
the stars...
On the wings of the ersatz ones... through
the fathomless abyss.
The Thaumaturgist's Epiphany: Like a
blackened and baleful sun shall I gaze down
from beyond the cumuli and the firmament
upon you. I alone must bear the burden of
this fiend-wrested lore.
New stars without number burn in the
heavens, but the shadow of oblivion falls
ever closer.
Shortly thereafter, the dreamscape began to
fade, and reality beckoned my
consciousness away from the incredible
vista. In truth, I was indeed glad to awaken...
15 October: 1893
After a sleepless and oppressively feverish
night spent pondering the truths which I
exhumed amongst The Ghosts Of Angkor
Wat, I have concluded that these perceived
parallels and their possible significance
carry me ever closer to the centre of this
great global web, the strands of which I have
been traversing in my long quest for
enlightenment, and yet I now fear that the
owner of this web has surely felt the
tremblings I have caused along its delicate
filaments, and may well feel compelled to
investigate the disturbance...
17 October: 1893
Such grim musings as have been occupying
my mind of late unfortunately seem to
suggest a possible link to the fate of my
learned friend and colleague Doctor Ignatius
Stone. That brilliant researcher was last
seen in command of all his faculties whilst
on an expedition to the ruins of the
Sumerian city of Ur, an undertaking which
preceded my own work there by some
eighteen months. Stone was a gifted
archaeologist who also dabbled, perhaps
unwisely, in certain areas of the occult,
particularly involving the various
grotesqueries once worshipped as Cthonic
deities by the ancient denizens of Ur. Mere
days before he ventured into the ziggurats of
that foreboding, mystery-haunted site, he
had dispatched a letter to me claiming that
he was on the verge of a truly staggering
arcane discovery at Ur which would
simultaneously prove the cyclical nature of
human civilisation as well as immediately
render redundant all previous theories on
the origin of man. Whatever misfortune
befell him within those aeons-old tombs
robbed him irrevocably of his sanity, for
when his attendants finally managed to prise
open the stone door of the vast central
catacomb, which had, I'm told, inexplicably
shut fast behind his three-man torch-bearing
party, they found two of the regularly stalwart
men had seemingly expired of pure fright,
while Stone was slumped against the north
wall, staring vacantly into the gloom,
gibbering about visitations by beings so
terrible that the very contemplation of their
existence would sunder a man's tenuous
hold on the reins of sanity.
When I later visited him at the sanatorium in
England, I found him to be a tragic shell of
the man I once knew, a man beset by
imagined terrors and ever wary of the
immemorial horrors which he claimed lurked
at the periphery of humanity's perceptions.
Indeed, I was glad I had taken a journal into
which I could transcribe his delusional rants,
for he had a great deal to tell me about The
Dreamer In The Catacombs Of Ur:
Doctor Ignatius Stone: It was like some
dark, dark dream. We had not heeded the
warnings of the ancients, and now we would
pay the price... here, within the catacombs
of Ur.
Lost within the lightless catacombs of Ur...
Entombed within the ziggurats!
The Keeper of the Ancient Lore of Ur:
Trapped forever in the catacombs of Ur...
your screams are heard in Babylon!
Doctor Ignatius Stone: Warnings etched
into the cuneiform tablets of Ur... Entombed
within the ziggurats!
The Keeper of the Ancient Lore of Ur:
Behold the great Cthonic deities of Ur...
Your screams are heard in Babylon!
Doctor Ignatius Stone: Here, beneath the
eternally shifting sands, I sought
enlightenment... but found only damnation!
The Chief Cultist of Ur: You have defiled
the sanctity of this sacred place!
The Keeper of the Ancient Lore of Ur:
Ancient before the Fifth Cataclysm, here
between the two rivers in Ur the Dreamer
waits! And when the seal of the seventh city
is broken, then shall the dreamer in the
catacombs of Ur awaken!
Forsaken (when His darksome splendorous
glory eclipses it) burns the sun,
Enthrone (the eternally) benighted one,
Usurper of the skies.
Named in (that black, shunned tome of )
forbidden lore,
Destined to rule (this telluric sphere and the
myriad stars beyond) once more,
The Dreamer shall arise!
Now, let the Gate yawn wide and the horrors
of the Abyss engulf the earth, for the
Dreamer in the catacombs is risen!
How many of my colleague's rants were
merely the result of his psychosis and how
many were actually born of fact, I cannot
discern... nor in truth do I wish to.
20 October, 1893
I have long felt the celebrated map of
Admiral Piri Reis, which quite astoundingly
depicts the continent of Antarctica in a state
wholly free of the ice which has bound it
ceaselessly since time immemorial, to be of
far wider and more resonant implications to
humanity than the proud echelons of the
scientific community will ever dare admit. I
believe that beneath the ice-veiled surface
of that southernmost continent lie the
remnants of time-lost civilisations which
were ancient even before fabled Atlantis
sank beneath the waves. Indeed, further
translation of the sigils engraved into the
antediluvian artefact has imbued my oft
derided theory with an unmistakable aura of
veracity. Piecing together the fragmentary
records evidenced in this incredible relic,
whilst simultaneously cross referencing the
resultant lore with information gleaned from
other sources on the same theoretical
subject, I have been able to extrapolate a
meaning from the arcane carvings which
transcends all but my most fevered
imaginings. What mighty cyclopean
structures once towered skyward where now
only the desolate wind-whipped ice-wastes
endure? What splendid peoples once throve
where now only the hardiest and most
resistant forms of life subsist? This ancient
and wondrous testament is truly an
elucidatory blessing to such idealistic
questors as I, who are forever In Search Of
The Lost Cities Of Antarctica:
The Explorer: Beneath the ice, the endless
ice of Pangaea's now axial eternally frozen
frontier, entombed for countless millions of
years... the lost cities of Antarctica!
Secrets locked within the ice, the endless
ice of Antarctica,
'Neath the peak of Erebus the First Ones
sleep, Lords of Pangaea,
Cities lost within the night, the frozen night of
Antarctica,
Pre-Cambrian, the Voyagers, beyond the
stars, Lords of Pangaea.
The Testament of the Winds: Once, the
coruscating spires of man here offered their
splendour to the heavens. Now, those spires
gleam no more, save in dreams of verdant
plains, save in dreams of time-lost citadels.
Legacy of a utopia lost, forever enshrined
'neath the ice...
Echoes of the First Ones:
Sail across Panthalassa to Gondwanaland,
Three moons to guide us on this voyage
across the sea,
Sail across Panthalassa to Gondwanaland,
New lands to conquer and claim for our
progeny.
The Testament of the Winds: Before the
Third Moon fell from orbit, before the Nine
Continents were formed from Pangaea's
shattered surface...
Hewn from the Pre-Cambrian rock, behold
this primordial metropolis!
And the First Ones shall awaken on that day,
when man will return to the stars!
Echoes of the First Ones: We, who were
before Man, are destined to be the
architects of his future!
The Explorer: And humanity shall one day
rediscover the secrets long-frozen within the
lost cities of Antarctica!
There will come a day when the ingenuity of
man shall pierce that impenetrable shield of
ice which keeps Antarctica's wonders from
our inquisitive gaze, and I truly believe that
day shall herald a glorious new era of
enlightenment for us all.
29 October, 1893
They came in the night, and butchered five
of my party, the terrified survivors fleeing
with the first wan light of dawn. The fiends
seemed inexplicably to be an extension of
the night, as if their misshapen bodies were
actually somehow composed of the
darkness itself. Even as I gazed directly at
them, I found I could not truly focus on their
stygian forms... their bodies appearing to
shimmer and shift like the ripples of a
heat-haze upon an arid plain. My
ammunition, discharged in vain, is all but
spent... and now, as night unfurls its malign
wings once more to enshroud this desolate
and forsaken place, I wait alone for the
sunrise I fear I shall never see. At dusk I
discovered a hidden alcove in the
time-raught surface of the great monolith
which stands as a mute sentinel before the
entrance to the colossal temple; a moss
encrusted crevice concealed from the eyes
of man for I know not how long. As the
darkness massed about me, a strange
miasma seemed to grip my mind in
tenebrous tendrils, and I beheld that
horrifying and immemorial edifice which I
now feel certain once cast its diabolical
shadow upon the Gate of the Sun. It is all
true, everything I feared, everything which I
dared imagine only in the blackest embrace
of the most narcotic malignity. There are Six
Keys To The Onyx Pyramid, which
conceal a terrifying truth never intended to
be grasped by the woefully fragile mind of
Man. I now pray that no unfortunate soul ever
again stumbles as close as I to those cryptic
axioms which lie ever in wait between the
incorporeal veils of light and shadow. I would
offer up a prayer to the divinity which once I
worshipped, but I know it would echo emptily
through the abyssal reaches of the
unheeding cosmos. As I scrawl this final
entry in my journal, the sun sinks with a
chilling finality below this now alien horizon. I
know the shadowy figures shall soon return
to claim me. I must fortify myself for the
onset of the night...
_____________________________________________________________
DRACONIS ALBIONENSIS
The Oracle of Logres: It was a time of
change. The descendants of the Atlantean
mages had fallen before the New
Praesidium, and the wolves were baying at
the Empire's door. An oppressive new faith
was encroaching from the east, and the
sylvan liege had locked tight the gates of his
arboreal realm. And so it was that towards
the end of the Age of Mystery, the last of
Albion's great Dragon Lords did gather for
what would be their final battle...
The War-song of the Dragon Lords:
Dragon-phalanx rend the sky, Albion our
gleaming prize,
Sentinels of land and sea, guardians of
destiny.
(Prowling amongst the pecseatan; Draconis
Bipedes, swift and furious beast of battle!)
The Dragon King's Vow: (Dragon-Runes
etched by the firey tongues of the IX Legio
Draconis into the primordial stone of the
great Logres Drachenstahl Cromlech):
The foes of this sceptred isle shall be driven
back into the sea!
An oath sworn in battle, a vow blessed by
steel,
I swear by the dragon's blood in my veins...
and the dragon's heart that pumps it!
The War-song of the Dragon Lords:
Dragonfyre in the fray, faith and steel shall
win the day,
A god to serf and king alike, the
Adamantine Hammer strikes!
(Devouring the infidel outlanders; Draconis
Nematoda, great winged worm of war!)
The Dragon King's Vow: To victory
eternal... this world shall be our empire!
Dragon Imperium, throne of the Ancient
Gods, behold the axiom, Wyruld-Cyninga!
It is time! We shall rule, and upon our
dominion the sun shall never set!
_____________________________________________________________
THE SPLENDOUR OF A THOUSAND
SWORDS GLEAMING BENEATH THE
BLAZON OF THE HYPERBOREAN
EMPIRE (Part: III)
THE ANTEDILUVIAN ORACLE: Behold
glorious Hyperborea, gleaming jewel of the
north; an eon-veiled kingdom forever
steeped in ancient legendry and the renown
of its martial splendour... but of late, an ill
wind whispers malignly through its opulent
labyrinth of marbled citadels...
WHAT HAS GONE BEFORE:
Episode I:
THE SPLENDOUR OF A THOUSAND
SWORDS GLEAMING BENEATH THE
BLAZON OF THE HYPERBOREAN
EMPIRE
{To be found on the second Bal-Sagoth
album; "Starfire Burning Upon The
Ice-Veiled Throne of Ultima Thule"}
Episode II:
THE DARK LIEGE OF CHAOS IS
UNLEASHED AT THE ENSORCELLED
SHRINE OF A'ZURA-KAI (THE
SPLENDOUR OF A THOUSAND
SWORDS GLEAMING BENEATH THE
BLAZON OF THE HYPERBOREAN
EMPIRE: Part: II)
{To be found on the third Bal-Sagoth album;
"Battle Magic"}
NOW...
Episode III:
CRY HAVOC FOR GLORY, AND THE
ANNIHILATION OF THE TITANS OF
CHAOS! (THE SPLENDOUR OF A
THOUSAND SWORDS GLEAMING
BENEATH THE BLAZON OF THE
HYPERBOREAN EMPIRE: Part: III)
ALTARUS: And so, it ends. You have
learned much, young Xerxes. Your training is
nigh on complete. The years which you have
spent here at the Praxeum have been
difficult ones, but the reward of elucidation
you have gained far outweighs the hardship
you have endured. Many lessons have you
learned, not least of which is that knowledge
is never without its price, my neophyte.
XERXES: Yes, master Altarus. I have
heeded your tutelage well, and your wisdom
has been a great balm to me during the
many trials I have undergone. I can now
command the Mists of the Oracle, and the
Great Eye of the Universe opens at my
bidding. And yet, before I am placed before
the final scrutiny of the Elders, I ask that I be
allowed to gaze into the sidereal vista once
more, to witness the final outcome of that
great struggle which has so captivated me
during my studies at the Praxeum.
ALTARUS: Ah yes... the epic conflict
between the Dark Liege of Chaos and the
royal Scion of proud Hyperborea. Very well,
my young apprentice. Command the
starscape to divulge its mysteries... look
deep into the fathomless mists, and the
ruinous carnage of A'zura-Kai shall once
again be arrayed before thine curious gaze.
Aye Xerxes, thrice you have summoned the
besieged and benighted vista of
Hyperborea... now pay heed, for the final
battle is at hand!
Chapter 7: The Last Stand Against
Chaos.
ALTARUS: And a crimson sun rose slowly
over the Field of Blood... and such were the
corpse-mounds of the dead that they
aspired to touch that ireful orb. Slithering
shadows nuzzled the massed bodies of the
slain, as the King rallied the survivors of the
battle against Chaos to one final act of
defiance...
LORD ANGSAAR: Impertinent mortal
wormcast! Do you truly aspire to prevail
against me? I am the Bane of the Atlantean
Kings, the Scourge of Lemuria, Arch-Foe of
the Immortals of Ultima Thule! Long before
man hurled himself squamously from the
primordial ooze, I waged war with gods and
thwarted eternity!
ALTARUS: Lord Angsaar, the Dark Liege
of Chaos, was poised on the brink of
ultimate victory. By insidious manipulation,
he had carefully drawn the forces of
Hyperborea to battle at the Shrine of
A'zura-Kai, pitting his legions of ravening
wraiths against the stalwart forces of the
Hyperborean Empire, and during the fray his
agents of evil had seized the Ninth Crystal of
Mera from the grasp of the King. With the
cosmic energies of the Shrine magnifying
the empyreal power of the Ninth Crystal,
Angsaar triumphantly performed the arcane
rite that would sunder the sorcerous fetters
which had hitherto kept his physical
incarnation confined within the ancient
Chamber of Slumber. Summoning the
interdimensional portal which the mystic
power of the Shrine allied with the sorceries
of the Crystal could generate, Angsaar
channelled his fiendish presence from his
darksome prison directly to the
death-gorged Field of Blood. Thus was the
spell of confinement woven countless aeons
ago by Angsaar's immortal nemesis broken,
and on that fateful day the dread
Chaos-Liege strode the world of mortal men
once more. The King, flanked by the few
valiant survivors of the ruinous
Wraith-onslaught, stood defiant before the
withering glare of Chaos...
LORD ANGSAAR: Ah, great King of
Hyperborea! My mystic shackles are at last
broken... I am free once more! Your army is
lost, your realm is mine... it shall be blessed
with the honour of being the first to fall
before my renewed onslaught! Bow to me in
obeisance!
THE KING: Never! For too long your
diseased machinations have hung like a
black pall over glorious Hyperborea... you
have invaded my very dreams and sown the
virulent seeds of base treachery within my
court. It ends here, arch-fiend!
LORD ANGSAAR: Feh! Yield to me, throw
down your sword! Obey and I promise that
your death shall be swift, if not entirely
devoid of suffering!
THE KING: I defy you!
LORD ANGSAAR: Hyperborea shall fall!
Your court shall become the heart of my new
imperium! Your people shall become my
lackeys, bearing the glorious burden of my
sovereignty with sweet praise upon their
lips!
THE KING: I shall always defy you!
LORD ANGSAAR: Then your pain shall
etch a new legend of suffering in the
benighted obelisks of the Outer Darkness,
and not even that cursed blade of
adamantine black steel shall preserve thee!
Die!
THE KING: So, the final battle begins! Into
the fray we ride! For the eternal glory of
Hyperborea!
ALTARUS: And the Chaos-Liege
summoned the remnants of his cackling
wraith-horde, commanding the unholy brood
to once more hurl itself like a black tide
against the now bloodied but still razor
edged steel of the grim survivors of
Hyperborea. With the enchantments of the
Ninth Crystal still crackling in the air about
the Shrine, the incorporeal frames of the
wraiths were once more transmogrified into
squamous pseudo-flesh, and thus vulnerable
to the biting blades of the King's depleted
war-host. Rallying his forces once more, the
Royal Scion of Hyperborea clove into the
massed hordes of nethermost horror, his
ensorcelled ebon blade hewing five-score
left and five-score right, leaving a viscous
and noxious trail of sundered fiends in his
wake. The Arch-Wraith of Lord Angsaar,
that same bestial horror which had smitten
the King and seized the Crystal of Mera
from his gauntleted fist, swooped screaming
from the crimson sky in a bid to extinguish
the life-force of the Hyperborean monarch,
but the benighted blade of the King was
swifter, and with a flash of noisome green
light and smoke, the Arch-Wraith's head
rolled to the blood-slaked earth, its leering
countenance forever frozen in a grotesque
parody of un-death. And once more, like a
purifying storm of righteous fury the heroes
of Hyperborea dealt steel-cold and martial
discipline unto the baying hounds of Chaos.
XERXES: And yet I perceive that the
wraith-horde's number was being ever
bolstered by the sorceries of the reborn
Chaos-Liege... for every keening horror
hacked down by a Hyperborean blade, three
more were summoned from the Outer
Darkness by the machinations of Angsaar.
Even the courage and the grim
determination of the King's valiant force
could not hope to prevail against such an
overwhelming foe. But the last, best hope
still remained, clutched tightly within the
King's fist! The Shadow-Sword!
ALTARUS: Your perceptions are clear,
young Xerxes. The life-essence of
Angsaar's arch-foe was still encased within
the stygian sword following their last
cataclysmic encounter many aeons past,
and that yard of fearsome black steel spoke
once more to the King in the same long
dead tongue it had burned upon his mind
deep within the Mountains of the Dead. One
hope remained to defeat Angsaar, but it
would carry with it a most terrible price for
the King.
Chapter 8: The Return of the Immortal
THE ECHOES OF THE IMMORTAL:
Hearken, noble King of Hyperborea. Long
ago, before life evolved from the boiling
oceans of the primordial sphere, I waged
furious and slaughterous battle with the
Chaos-Liege over the possession of the
sacred Crystals of Mera, shards of such
incredible sorcerous potency that even the
Empyreal Lexicon itself was no greater a
prize. Although I succeeded in smiting the
dark one and imprisoning him within his
Chamber of Slumber, I was hammered to
the brink of dissolution by the abominations
of Chaos, and I thus transferred my
life-essence into my Sword, that same blade
which you now hold in your grasp. I
committed my fading energies to concealing
the blade from the sight of man until such
time as it would once more be needed to
bring to bear against Chaos... aye, until such
time as Angsaar reawakened. It was I who
guided you to the mountainous resting place
of the blade when my arch-foe marked you
as central protagonist in his scheme to
recover the Prime Crystal, o' King of the
North. To utterly destroy the Dark Liege of
Chaos, you must join your essence with
mine... we must fuse our life-forces and
become one so that my full power may be
unleashed against Angsaar once more. But
this final deed demands the most severe of
tolls, o' noble monarch... To become as one
with the immortal essence of the
Shadow-Sword is to sacrifice forever your
own mortality, and to forsake eternally the
world of man. Are you prepared to pay this
price, King of Hyperborea?
THE KING: To preserve the sovereignty of
my realm and safeguard my people from the
forces of darkness? Aye! For my kingship
demands no less a commitment! So be it...
let this final deed be done!
THE WARRIORS OF HYPERBOREA:
Imperius Rex!
LORD ANGSAAR: What futile gesture is
this? Curse you, manling! Can you not
accept the inevitability of your defeat?
THE KING: Begone, servitor of Chaos!
Your nemesis awaits thee! Return to the
Outer Darkness!
LORD ANGSAAR: You fool! You cannot
comprehend your actions! I offered you
sweet oblivion, and instead you have
chosen tortuous damnation!
THE KING: I would sooner suffer damnation
a thousand times than bend the knee to
Chaos!
ALTARUS: And a great stillness
descended over the Field of Blood. Grimly,
slowly, the King held aloft the
Shadow-Sword and spoke those baleful
words of power which had been forever
branded indelibly upon his soul. Writhing
tendrils of night-dark, coruscating energy
lanced from the surface of the blade,
entwining the King in a pulsating chrysalis of
searing sorcerous power. His eyes shone
deep crimson with an illuminatory radiance
not born of this world, and forces which had
lain dormant since before the fall of the Third
Moon stirred at last from their aeons-old
slumber...
LORD ANGSAAR: No... my eternal
nemesis, you will not thwart me!
Abominations rise! Destroy these mortals
who vex me as the buzzing of gnats vexes a
titan! Drag their impudent souls to the
abyss!
THE WARRIORS OF HYPERBOREA:
Havoc is the cry! Come, fiends of the
nether-void... face righteous pattern-welded
death!
LORD ANGSAAR: Praise Chaos! By the
crystal heart of Mera I shall stand deified!
THE WARRIORS OF HYPERBOREA:
Glory eternal! For our King and sacred
Hyperborea!
THE KING: Noble warriors of Hyperborea...
I salute your steadfast courage. This will be
my final command to you. Now come...
follow your King into battle one last time. Into
the fray we ride... For the eternal glory of
Hyperborea!
ANGSAAR: The circle closes... you cannot
resist the unparalleled might of Chaos and
the exquisite majesty of the Z'xulth! I shall
unleash all the terrors of the Outer Darkness
against thee! Behold the true extent of my
power... My flesh is a shrine wherein all
demons dwell!
THE WARRIORS OF HYPERBOREA:
Stand fast! Cry havoc for glory and the
annihilation of the titans of Chaos! We fight
to the last man!
THE KING: By all the gods of Hyperborea...
a legacy shall be wrought by our blades...
our legend shall live forever! Hear me,
Angsaar! My humanity fades... my mortality
dissipates as does the darkness before the
glimmering kiss of the dawn! Let us finish
it... Let this be our final battle!
ALTARUS: And thus was etched into the
eternal codex of the heavens the immortal
legend of the Hyperborean Empire.
XERXES: But master Altarus... what was
the outcome of the final clash? What effect
did the power of the Immortal have upon the
King? Did he ultimately defeat Angsaar and
the horrors spawned from the Outer
Darkness?
ALTARUS: Alas Xerxes, no one knows the
final outcome of the battle. Even the Great
Eye of the Universe and the Mists of the
Oracle are unable to ascertain the fate of the
King and his army on that fate-steeped
dawn. So much unparalleled and polarized
arcane power was unleashed upon the Field
of Blood at that instant that it has forever
obscured the oracular vista and shielded the
truth from the eyes of even the most talented
and presentient master of the Praxeum.
Today, Hyperborea is but a memory, a
glorious legend which rests forever within
the same fathomless shark-haunted grave
as do mythic Lemuria and fabled Atlantis..
XERXES: I shall make it a priority to
ascertain the truth, master. I vow I shall
channel all the skills I have learned here at
the Praxeum into discovering the final fate of
the King of Hyperborea!
ALTARUS: And I believe that you may well
succeed, my young apprentice. But
whatever the case, one thing is certain. As
long as legends endure in the cosmos and
the deeds of heroes are celebrated in the
annals of eternity, none who gaze in awe
beyond the mists and are blessed to behold
it shall ever forget the splendour of a
thousand swords gleaming beneath the
blazon of the Hyperborean Empire.
THE END...?
_____________________________________________________________
THE CHRONICLE OF SHADOWS
The Imperator of the Night
(Hearken to the Attestation of the
Sinistrous):
For it is the iniquity of man which compels
him to these tenebrous gates, seeking
opiate dreams and the alluring embrace of
oblivion...
Know that I have cavorted beneath the
horned moon with repellent fiends, and
liberated virgins from the burden of their
maidenhood.
(Supping deep of that sweet ichor and
revelling in the sanguineous megrims my
ophidian tongue has wrought.)
Tyrannic I am where the Serpent dwells, the
lissome embrace of the succubi,
Like a wolf in the fold, red of tooth and claw,
enthroned beneath black nether-skies.
Shadows stalk the viscid gloom, (beware
the) blades of the assassins,
The call of Ul-Yeh in the air, the crystal skull
is shattered,
A veil of cloud about the moon, (fevered)
dreams of (trenchant) steel and fire,
Hearken to the slithering, the envenomed
kiss of night.
The Imperator of the Night
(Thus Spake the Chronicle of
Shadows):
Such adoration bestowed upon me beneath
the cryptic moon!
Caressed by ululant lotus-stained tongues...
(Behold the true purity of that which lurks
concealed beneath the mantle of shadow,
and let the deluded, debauched sybarites
flee in terror from that darkness which they
profess to embrace!)
Beyond the spheres of light and darkness,
beneath distant pallid stars, I bring the
iridescent glimmer of forbidden truth, seared
in the crucible of blasphemy!
For amorphous they come, steeped in the
fetor of ten thousand years,
Abhorrent colossi spawned from the
sinistrous cosmic spheres.
And upon their tongues, vile secrets so
terrible sweet madness is a redolent balm!
The Imperator of the Night
(Revel in the Triumph of the Dark):
I shall glut the maw of that ineffable
nameless evil which lurks forever in the soul
of man, for so it is written in the Chronicle of
Shadows...
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